


and there are lights

by Kells



Series: gifts, requests, and other little bits [10]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, F/M, Female Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-16 02:26:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2252391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kells/pseuds/Kells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which James Barnes gets in the way of an ancient ritual, turning his wife into a vampire but not an unholy beast, and they have to find the demon Johannes and end his life before Stephanie's dependence on her husband's blood becomes more than they can live with. If it can be called living.  </p><p>along the way they pick up Tony Stark, who supplies his father's research as well as his own mad inventions, the disgraced Dr. Banner, and a pair of trackers with their own complex and tragic past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know anymore, okay? Title from Dracula because where else would I go for this? [“There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights.”]  
> special contest hahaha: first person to realise the terrible, terrible, pun that is the reason this exists gets ...whatever they want. An AU of your choice, maybe, since apparently I can't stop. it's really a very awful pun but it made us all laugh and then it made this happen.

“-in everything you are and will yet be. Join with me, Stephanie.”

“No,” she whispered, choking  on it. Stephanie knew she must look away at once, but the demon’s hypnotic gaze held her fast. Her husband cried out in the darkness behind her, begging her to resist. To what end, she could not be sure _;_ they were alone in a crypt Howard did not know about, which Peggy would not be able to open on her own. James had been chained to a solid wall of rock when she’d burst in on him and Johannes.

“Say the words, girl.”

Stephanie kept her mouth firmly shut. Her husband had told her to wait for him with Peggy- it was the only thing he’d asked of her. He would be so angry- later, much later, when he had had time to grieve. If he ever recovered from being made to watch her die.

“You will be mine,” the vampire told her gently. His voice was rich and coaxing- it sounded like it would be the highest bliss. If she did not, she knew he would kill her without another thought. Arguably he had killed her when his teeth met her neck. If she let him change her he was sure to make her turn her husband for the joy of watching the wretched youth's heart break.

“You will give yourself to me, become my slave as I am your master.”

“She will not. I tell you again, _she is mine._ ”

Somehow James had wrenched free- quite possibly he had broken bones to do it. He was too far off to use the stake that would have killed the demon, but silver bullets did their own work. Johannes screamed as they pierced his shoulder and his neck. They could not do fatal damage, but they slowed the vampire down immeasurably. He seemed to know he couldn’t fight a fully trained hunter, even one already injured and distraught, without moving his arm or head. He glared at Stephanie, condemning her decision to die at her husband’s feet when he had been prepared to offer more power than she could imagine. With one last frustrated hiss he took himself away in mist and darkness.

“Stephanie.”

James stumbled towards her as she sank to her knees in the dust.

“Please, darling, open your eyes for me.”

If they were dark already he would have no choice but to do his duty. Stephanie blinked at him, sick and sluggish. She had never known a man to look at anyone else the way her husband looked at her.

“Thank god. There you are, my blue-eyed girl.”

James kissed her quickly, too aware it might be the last time he could risk it. Stephanie tried to smile, but it was getting hard to focus. She could hear his blood, rushing as his heart beat too fast- too fast, as if to make up for her own, which was too slow already. She could see it, at the corner of his mouth where Johannes must have hit him. She thought she’d like for him to kiss her again and realised she meant she’d like to bite, and suck, and-

“You must finish this and go.”

“I will not take another step without you.”

She knew from his face that he was not going to argue. How could she make him understand that there was nothing to be gained from arguing with things that were already done?

“James-“

He was so close, his lips so soft. When she fell against his neck she moaned as she found his pulse- bright, delicious, and  _right there._

“James, please, _you cannot stay here_.”

Usually he listened when she spoke to him in urgency. Not today. He caught her shoulders, forceful in a way he’d never had to be before.

“Listen to me. That monster has nothing to do with this. You know we share everything we are.  Stay with me, Stephanie. Not as slave or master. Stay as my wife, my love, joined with me by God.”

“Yes,” she murmured, trying to focus on what he was saying but too desperate for the taste of him to think about much else. She had no idea what he imagined he was doing, but there couldn’t be any harm in it- he’d had that promise from her years ago. She’d never leave him if she had a choice.

She choked back a longing scream when he took his steel-and-silver knife in hand and slid it quickly, firmly, across his own throat. Now she could see it, smell it- not the iron tang she had known before, but something deep and dark, rich like the finest chocolate. Like the coffee Howard brought them sometimes, but more than that in ways that didn’t bear explaining.

“James, yes.”

He nodded, decisive, and tipped his head back to offer- everything he was.

“Go on, sweet girl.”

He was still watching- unhesitating, encouraging- when she lowered her head. She felt him seize as her fangs sank into his neck, his hands cramping at her waist as she suckled like a babe. Though not so much like a child, she realised as her pulse quickened with his strength. That heady rush was not a childish feeling. He gasped, rigid with tension, but didn’t try to pull away.

“James,” she breathed against his neck.

“James, what in God’s name have you done to us?”

Stephanie forced  her fingers to unbend from around her husband’s shoulders before he grew too weak to stand.

“You have to leave, now.”

Because he loved her, or because he knew they would have no future if they couldn’t trust each other in this, he did not make her ask again.

Stephanie knelt alone in the crypt that should have been her prison, at least, if not her grave. She found one of her husband's wooden stakes abandoned on the ground and wondered if it would not be kinder to do for him what James could not face himself. She picked it up and pressed it carefully to her chest. She’d seen him do it, more than once. He’d been teaching her the same tricks for when she was ready to fight with him. Later, he had said.

But Johannes would have killed him- even Peggy had been sure of it. She would never have let Stephanie go after him if there had been any hope of James returning on his own.

She would have died of grief, Stephanie thought. Could she do that to him? Had it been done already?

As she turned, her skirts brushed something metal- her too-sharp senses made out both the rustle and the chime. She reached for it and gasped as she found the crucifix Johannes had ripped from about her neck. She’d never worn it for protection, though of course it should have offered that as well, if he had not learnt to check for them before he took off his gloves. It was her husband’s mother’s cross, and Stephanie had worn it because he’d wanted her to have it. And now-

Now, it lay cool and comforting in the palm of her hand.

She turned it over slowly, then studied her own hand as if she could somehow have mistaken the sensation of her flesh _not_ burning.

She was one of them, she knew it- she could still taste his blood on her lips.

And yet her God had not forsaken her. Further- the cross was cool; thus, she was warm. His blood ran in her veins- Stephanie was _alive_ because of it. Somehow James had found a way to intervene- she hadn’t had to sell her soul to live when she was dying.

_My wife, my love, joined with me by God._

Of course James Barnes would turn a demonic pledge into a prayer, and in so doing save his beloved’s soul. But at what cost? She would not let him find out on his own.

When she reached Howard’s country house- which took the time it had taken her to leave it, because she would _not_ use the powers she had not asked for, lest it shift the balance she didn’t understand as yet- she found her husband looking ill while his dearest friend paced his drawing room with his brows drawn together.

“James,” she called, hesitant- then whirled, just as he raised his head, to pin her attacker to the ground. Instinct took over before she knew what had possessed her, and she had both hands around Peggy Carter’s neck when her husband spoke.

“Gentle now. Stephanie, you mustn't hurt our Peggy.”

She blinked once, twice, three times before releasing her quarry.

“I’m sorry,” she said, because in a way she was. Stephanie thought she would feel more remorse if she could bring herself to look away from the stake in her bosom companion’s hand. Peggy, still gasping like a fish, was staring at her mouth; Stephanie concentrated for a moment and felt the fangs she had not yet seen herself retract.

“I think you should go now.”

“What? Howard- ”

Her husband looked more heartbroken than he had when he had been offering Stephanie his own life’s blood.

“You’ve seen the same as I have. She’s not human.”

Stephanie flinched even though she knew it to be the truth. James barely reacted.

“She’s still my wife.”

“James,” Peggy ventured, “You need to be reasonable.”

He said nothing- there would be no discussion. The time for being reasonable had come and gone with the meeting, months ago now, when they had agreed to go after Johannes in the first instance.

“We’ll not breathe a word,” Howard promised. He looked and sounded like he was at a funeral. That, too, seemed appropriate.

“But you have to know she can’t stay here. James, I have to think of Tony.”

Little Anthony was barely three years old, a handsome boy, bright as a button. He adored his father’s friends; with any luck, he would forget he’d ever known them.

Her husband held out the knife he had been carrying since they had set out on their quest, but Howard waved him off.

“Keep it. It was forged for you.”

Stephanie saw her husband soften, hearing the words they wouldn’t say out loud.

“Keep well, Stark. Raise that boy the way he deserves.”

They embraced like brothers, but Stephanie thought they knew they would not meet again. Peggy never said a word.

“Stephanie,” he said softly, and she took his arm when he offered it.

They found rooms for the night, not too far away. They’d have to leave- who knew where they would go? They’d start with Hungary, James said. As he and Howard understood it they must find Schmidt so she could kill her sire- he shuddered at the word, but his gentle look never altered- and end the curse they couldn’t fully understand.

“Which is as well,” her husband murmured, aiming for a bracing tone.

“As ending that bastard’s sorry existence was our plan in any case.”

“James Barnes,” Stephanie said clearly, “I hope you understand that you are the bravest man I’ll ever know.”

The yearning in those long-beloved eyes was almost her undoing, but if he was determined to give all he had to see her safely through then she would do no less. After she had bound his wrists- one broken, the other only badly sprained- Stephanie urged her husband gently into the other room and made him lock his door and bolt it before she did the same to hers. She told him good night through two layers of oak. In the morning, he had said, they would find out how far the curse extended. Sunlight, mirrors, garlic- these had less to do with theology than silver and the Cross, so they couldn’t guess how far she would be protected. They would find out, James assured her, and they would plan accordingly. He had been so calm- he had seemed very sure.

Stephanie lay awake, listening to him pace and wondering if he knew that she could hear his every step- more than that, his every breath. She hoped he couldn't know that she was listening, and weeping with him, when he dropped to his knees with a sob. She closed her hand around the crucifix that meant they could still hope, and joined her prayers to his.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in the half-life, when time means less than it once did, fifteen years pass like a long evening.

There was a school of thought, neither well-known nor much credited, which argued that vampirism was a fatal disease rather than a curse; it was the secondary transformation, the blood pact, that changed the creature beyond redemption. As Stephanie continued to live and breathe, as well as attend Mass and feed on her husband’s blood, James became ever more convinced that it was not a question of disease but of infestation. He spoke of parasites, not with his own military candour, but using technical terms Stephanie had not realized he knew so well. He spoke, she thought, like Howard Stark.

What James believed, with all his heart, was that Stephanie was in essence as she had always been, his own sweet blue-eyed girl, but bowed down by the demands of these creatures who gave her strength and speed like she had never known, but not for free. When they found the damned Johannes and sent him back to Hell, James insisted, the vermin would die with him, and Stephanie would be free. He seemed to have no doubt of it at all- his every thought seemed to be of getting to that moment and beyond it, of securing the future in which he could take his beloved’s hand and step with her into the light.

What Stephanie believed was that a creature who had to forbid her only love from touching her at all, lest she take leave of her senses and bleed him dry in some crazed fit of more-than-greed, must be called monstrous whether the devil figured in the deal or not. She could not press her lips to his wrist- safer, she had found, than his neck, because it gave him more control when she was beyond exercising any of her own- without imagining what it would be to go too far, to take more than he could give. If he died she would never recover; if she killed him she did not think she’d want to.

The first decade of their new life was fraught with just this tension: he fought for her, she feared for him, they lashed out at each other in part because there was no one else in their lives with whom they could afford to be familiar. They moved from city to village to town, following real leads and local legend with equal tenacity. Sometimes they travelled as man and wife, a couple in love even if they could not risk going arm in arm. Other times they rode in stormy silence, bound more by blood and solemn vow than by any friendly feeling. At the end of every day- two if Stephanie was petulant or James had been hurt some other way- he rolled back his sleeve and took his wife into his arms as she fed like the beast she had become.

Her husband never reacted with the fear and revulsion Stephanie knew she deserved. Eventually guessing got to be too much to bear and she demanded, half puzzled and half accusing, why he was not disgusted, repelled, horrified by her.

“Because I love you,” James answered, as if that could be all there was to it. They were skirting the Tatras at the time, and Stephanie wanted nothing more than to drag him out to any one of the villages around them and force him to look at the brittle babes whose mothers cried as they tried to make them take water instead of the milk they could not give.

“Can love be enough for _this_?”

Stephanie would not forget the way the fire in her husband’s eyes had banked, his fighting attitude stiffening into hurt.

“Shouldn't it? The promise I gave you was for better or worse.”

She laughed, startling herself with the bitterness of it.

“God knows it cannot get much worse.”

He disagreed so fiercely that she could feel it in the air.

“He almost killed you. Woman, he almost cost you your immortal soul.”

His breath came in shallow gasps- he did not like to think of what he had only narrowly prevented. The pounding of his heart was loud in her ears. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes alight again- with fear, with love, with the determination to save her that defied every force including her own insecurity. He was magnificent, she thought; he was immaculate. She would be his ruin, whether by her own hand or by his folly on her account. 

“James,” she whispered, “We will both run mad before we ever find him.”

He smiled.

“Or we are there already. Perhaps none of this is real, and we have been at home, in bed, this past decade, with Sarah Miller crying over us as we fail entirely to speak sense.”

She had never wanted more to take charge of him, to drag him up against her and close her lips over his until the very air he breathed was hers. If she tried it too soon, it was more likely she would kill him than bring him any pleasure.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

“Of course you’re right.”

He took her hand in his, brave because they were both wearing their thick winter gloves, and promised without words that he would be her faith when it was lacking. Why not, she wondered, when he was already her heart, her lungs, her blood.

“I do love you, my James.”

“I have always known it, Stephanie.”

They learnt to be more temperate as time passed- not only in their behavior towards each other. The web of Johannes’ influence was vast, and the networks that could hide him wider still. This would not be some quick advance, they came to see, but a long, slow, game of wit and patience both. James, thank god, had both of those in ample measure- Stephanie was surer of herself in one aspect than the other.

Just once they very nearly came to grief. Realising the date, Stephanie wished her husband a happy fortieth birthday with all the warmth they could afford, then realized with a chill that no one who looked at him could possibly see that they had been about the work of hunting her sire for more than fifteen years.

“James,” she whispered, “My love, should there not be grey in your hair by now?”

It had not occurred to her- he looked just like he had the day she had been changed, and because she did as well it had never seemed unnatural until now. Her husband smiled, patient, almost indulgent, and theorized in those clinical terms that the parasites must have some way to preserve their only host.

“It stands to reason, Stephanie. They will not want me to run out of time before you do.”

“How long have you known?”

He had not known, he demurred- only suspected.

“James. How long?”

The answer was measured in years, not days or weeks. He had never breathed a word.

Stephanie turned away, then, the first time since before they had been wed that she chose to walk away from him in anger. He called her name, already worried, protective even though he must know she could more than handle any threat the remote woods might throw at them. He let her go- because he loved her, or because he was afraid? Perhaps he was afraid because he loved her, and she _wasn’t human._ She should not have let him leave with her- Howard would have kept him safe and whole _and human._

Stephanie wandered without aim, eventually allowing warm laughter and lively gypsy songs to draw her to a bonfire at the edge of a camp she had never seen before. She smiled at the children running and screeching like so many little earthbound eagles.  

“Would the beautiful stranger care for a dance?”

This bold young man- lithe, handsome, already drunk- could not realise that he would already have been dead if Stephanie had become what Johannes had intended.

“You are much too young for me,” she retorted; his smirk grew into a leer.

“Like a man with experience, do you? I’ve got more than you’d think, darling.”

That word, on anyone else’s lips but his-  

“No,” she quietly.

“Thank you. I must be on my way.”

The young man caught her arm, insistent. Stephanie saw suddenly that she was had found a greater quandry than she had realized. She could protect herself by resisting, but to throw off a man so much stronger than she ought to be would risk more secrets than she could afford to give away.

“I say you should stay.”

“I have a husband,” she warned him coldly. The boy laughed.

“Of course you do. Where is the worthy gent, then?”

He was at home or wandering the woods, driving himself to distraction with the different ways she could have found disaster. He would be so, so angry. Later, when he had had time to grieve. A theme, with them, apparently.

“What do you want?”

He was too close. If it had been her husband Stephanie would have been lost already. With this brazen ass she found she wanted to snap at him, or save herself the trouble and simply snap his neck.

“A kiss, I think, to start with. And later-“

“I would show the lady more respect if I were you.”

James crossed his arms, allowing his long travelling coat to fall open. The fool’s grasp on Stephanie weakened considerably at the sight of the pistol at her husband’s belt.

“So the husband does exist. You should keep your woman on a shorter lead.”

James laid her would-be captor flat. Stephanie fought not to laugh at the disdain on her husband's face.

“If I did that she might think I do not trust her. That is not the problem here.”

He turned to her as soon as the wretch had made himself scarce.

“Did he hurt you?”

“I could have killed him.”

“If you had we would have much bigger problems now.”

His heart was beating much too quickly, Stephanie realized. His pulse was racing, his breathing smooth but shallow.

“You were frightened.”

“He meant to force you. If you had shown your strength they would have strung you up.”

The truth of it hung between them for a while. Carefully, forcing a semblance of the restraint she had largely forgotten how to feel, Stephanie let her fingertips brush her husband’s face. She saw his eyelids flutter, but James knew as well as she did why he must keep his eyes wide open when she tried to show him tenderness.

“My James. I don’t think other men love quite the way you do.”

He winked.

“I hope you never have occasion to find out, Mrs. Barnes.”

They walked in silence for some distance. Stephanie tried to guess what James was thinking, but neither eyes nor vital blood gave anything away.

He caught her gently around the waist, almost an automatic movement, when she stumbled. They blinked at each other for a moment, no longer used to being able to make eye contact in such proximity. Already, it was hard to think beyond that steady pulse, the knowledge of that inebriating flavor.

“You’re tired.”

His voice was reproach and self-reproach at once.

“Three days is too long, Stephanie.”

If she knew her husband at all, he was already wondering how to devise some terrible flask to keep his blood fresh in case they could not be together. Only for emergencies, he would say, and devote himself to making it happen without ever reflecting on the hideousness of even requiring such a design.

“I wish I could show you,” Stephanie whispered; James smiled uncertainly but did not ask her what. She told him in spite of his discretion, or because of it.

“How deeply I adore you. How much it means to have you with me always.”

She knew from his choked-off sigh, that what James wanted was to draw her close and kiss her until she was trembling in his arms. He had not done it very many times- after a long absence, or before he had had to leave her on one of his military tours- but it had always put a spark of something more than joyful in his eyes, and she had relished it as much as he had.

“When we find him, James- when we have made this right.”

He nodded, encouraging. She knew he liked her use of ‘when’.

“You will make me yours any time you wish. Every time you wish. With the curtains drawn, sometimes; I should like to kiss you in the sunlight too.”

Stephanie had never spoken so wantonly in her life. She was already blushing, wondering if she could blame the parasites for her sudden loss of any kind of decency, but her husband was smiling at her.

“Now I know _you_ wish it no force on earth will stop me. Hush now, and take what’s yours.”

She had not so much as seen him undo his cuffs.

His free had stroked her hair, then slid across her shoulders and down her back to tighten at her waist as Stephanie gave herself over to the sensation of him. Too soon, _too soon,_ he was whispering her name, and she had to let him go.

“You’ll be all right?”

He smiled, nodded, watched her walk away without one discontented word or sigh. When he caught up to her some forty minutes later it was no longer a trial to look at him without latching immediately onto his throat, so Stephanie smiled to let him know it was safe, and that she was, as ever, glad to see him.

“I’m sorry I never told you.”

“I’m sorry it took me more than fifteen years to notice.”

He laughed, surprised. She longed to take his hand. They were almost at the cottage when Stephanie froze. James reached for his gun as he came to a standstill with her.

“What is it??”

There was a man in their home, just waiting. When he did not emerge, or attack, James shrugged minutely.

“Perhaps we should ask him what he wants.”

They found him, shabby and underfed, waiting for them in what passed for a common area in their little cottage.

“Captain Barnes,” he murmured, rising as they entered. Stephanie’s husband nodded once.

“Doctor Banner? I know your work, sir.”

He could have said he had studied it exhaustively- Banner was one of those who endorsed the treatment of vampirism as an illness, but unlike many of his colleagues he seemed convinced that the condition need not be fatal. The doctor had gone so far as to claim he was fabricating a cure, but as there had been no further news James and Stephanie had been forced to conclude that the attempt had come to nothing.

Banner looked very taken aback- he had not expected to be recognized. 

“I had not thought you would take an interest in the literature.”

“What is it you want, doctor?”

“Only to speak to you.”

James was being very polite, Stephanie thought, considering the man had broken into their home.

“Do you often find a loaded gun conducive to conversation?”

Doctor Banner smiled ruefully, laying his pistol on the table in front of him.

“I apologise- a precaution; I should have known better. Let me speak plainly: I know your secret.”

“I did not imagine you had come here to admire the architecture. I ask again: what do you want from us?”

“My business is with you. You must release the young lady.”

For the first time in the conversation, James looked somewhat at a loss. Stephanie studied the doctor- jaw set, heart fluttering restlessly, eyes fixed on her husband’s mouth- and thought of Peggy, who had been her friend. In fairness, she thought, James did prefer to keep the same hours she did as far as it did not interfere with his research, and with all the caution she demanded he dressed more like a heliophobe than she ever had to do.

“ _You_ must stop pointing that gun at my poor husband. He cannot release me; I would never allow it.”

She smiled at the unfortunate doctor, startled for the third time in as many minutes. Her husband’s amusement was tangible, as was his curiosity. She glanced his way; he nodded very slightly. He would trust her in this, as in so very many things.

Stephanie bared her fangs.

“I think perhaps it isn’t James you seek."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Banner proposes a solution; James and Stephanie disagree. The doctor tests an experimental serum, but not on himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YAY clever EstherCloyse got there in the end! happiness is a hideous pun come join me I have been calling this the Bucky the Vampire Slayer fic since before it started <3 <3 I know it's daft okay it just makes me giggle.

If Bruce Banner called Stephanie “most remarkable” one more time the next ten minutes, the lady herself thought, her husband was as likely to shoot himself out of frustration as to attack the doctor for being the one to frustrate him.

“Yes, yes- she is the very miracle of creation. Is that all or do you plan to say something of substance?”

After Dr. Banner had overcome the initial shock of discovering that the mysteriously altruistic vampire he had sought for months was not the Captain but Mrs. Barnes, he had had so many questions that Stephanie had begun to think the day would dawn before he was through interrogating them. The doctor was as fascinated with the physiology of her condition- “But you still have life and breath! Astonishing!”- as by the logic, and logistics, of their long-term arrangements. He was clearly deeply moved by the fact that Captain Barnes had not abadoned Stephanie at the first signs of her condition- when he heard what James had done, and how he had not only not forsaken his wife but actually saved her, Stephanie was more surprised that the doctor did not dissolve in tears than she would have been if he had.

Banner was thrilled with James’ theory of parasitism but could not be made to even think about the theology of the blood pact. Having always thought of it as mere mythology, he balked at their insistence that it was the crux of the whole situation. James took the doctor on point for point; Stephanie, saying nothing, held out the crucifix she still wore and watched Banner’s eyes widen for the hundredth time that evening.

The doctor was still fairly young, earnest in the extreme, and deeply knowledgable in his field. He had not fared well in Edinburgh, where he had started out- they had not learnt to speak of vampirism as more than myth, and after one too many board meeting ended in laughter and jeering Dr. Banner had thrown his hand in and left, he said, in search of the primary sources. He meant both lore and direct study- he had been seeking vampire hunters in the hope of finding a live subject. James had laughed aloud at that as Stephanie smiled along- anyone who had ever seen a vampire knew that the only choice in an attack was between killing and dying.

It was in Hungary, the doctor told husband and wife in separate conversations, that someone had first asked him whether one of the cursed could conceivably fight for good. Bruce had laughed, but the young man had not been joking. There  had been a pair of them, he said, though they did not always appear together. No one had ever seen them in daylight, or even in town, but over several years more than a handful of people would swear they had been helped by a pair of youths who knew the forest far better than made sense for those who did not seem to speak the language. The attacks that had been common in the area became sporadic, and then sparse. Of course they did not see their unknown protectors again once they stopped altogether.

Bruce had smiled and nodded, marvelling at local fancy or the cleverness of some nomadic hunters, but as he moved on he found that these alleged altruists had been seen elsewhere too. They never lingered after a fight, nor spoke to anyone except each other, still in that foreign tongue of theirs, but eventually the attacks in fear of which they had all lived had ceased entirely. Of course no one had ever seen those two again.

“They were very sure it was one man, or two. No one ever mentioned a young woman.”

“People see what they want to,” James smirked. They had gone to church with many of the same people- he every week, she as often as the sun allowed it- and given and received the sign of peace without the slightest fear of recognition.

By the time Dr. Banner had exhausted his curiosity- for the time being, he assured them, though they had no cause to doubt it- he had been staying with them for several days and showed no sign of wanting to move on. When he finally shared what he had traced them all the way to Poland to say to the noble vampires he had hoped to find, Stephanie’s reaction was diametrically opposed to her husband’s. She gave a tiny gasp, one had covering her mouth as she began to smile. She had not had time to ask if the doctor truly meant what he was saying when James’ fist collided violently with the tabletop.

“No. You are mistaken. It cannot be done- he must be killed. I am sure of it; Howard would have known if there were any other way to end this.”

Stephanie felt an old, familiar anger stir. She could not understand her husband’s loyalty to the man who had abandoned them in their hour of need. He was a faithless, vicious man, she had said more than once; he had been thinking of his family, James always answered. Stephanie said James would never have turned Howard away in distress; James countered that he had never had a child to protect. The argument never progressed much farther, though, because given how they lived neither liked to antagonise the other longer than they felt they must. But if James was determined to deny new discoveries in memoriam of a friendship that could not be renewed, Stephanie thought, then she would fight him on it. Doctor Banner intervened before she could.

“I am not speaking of a cure, Captain- not as you mean.”

What he proposed instead was a serum that could temper the _effects_ of the vampiric condition- he could treat the symptoms, he said, if not the disease itself. Stephanie’s husband looked highly skeptical. Banner admitted that most of his findings were theoretical- he had gone so far as to make the drug, he said, but of course he had had no way to test it. He had hoped to offer his assistance- he had hoped to find a subject.

“I believe I should like to try it.”

Both men looked taken aback; only James looked deeply shocked. Stephanie focused on convincing him. She would have liked to take his hand- perhaps this doctor would make it so she could.

“If it fails we are no worse off. It if works-“

“Of course it isn't going to work.”

Stephanie had never known her husband to be so dismissive. She found she did not care for it.

“Why? Because it was not your Howard who suggested it?”

He glared like he could not believe she could be so dull-witted, but she had seen the hurt in his eyes.

“False hope is the enemy of reason. You will try, you will fail- I mean no offence, doctor, but even if the theory were sound you could not succeed in one attempt- you will tell each other you were close, the next time it will work. You will start the whole thing over, and try once more and fail again, and so indefinitely until he kills you or I kill him.”

Poor James, Stephanie thought- locked away with her so long he was forgetting how to trust in other men.

“But what if it works, James?”

“It cannot work. The premises are flawed. He seeks to treat a virus- that is not what we are dealing with.”

The doctor said he could adjust his formula, develop it a little. James looked torn between derision and despair.

“Develop it- as though she were a locomotive engine with parts still to be fitted. No, no, I forbid it. We'll hear no more of this.”

If he said no, Stephanie thought desolately, the doctor would leave- there would be no one to help her husband with his work, no one to talk to her about the world they did not fully inhabit anymore- Banner might have the solution to half their troubles in the very room with them, and James would not hear reason. Suddenly, she was incensed.

 “You _forbid_ it? Perhaps you should have made me call you Master, if you're so sure I am your creature to command.”

His stricken look said she had gone too far. Belatedly, Stephanie realised James had meant to forbid the treatment of his wife as an object to be refurbished rather than to limit her freedom of choice. She tried to make amends without giving in entirely.

“You must not be afraid- you know I would still-”

If Stephanie had thought her own laughter had seemed bitter those few days before- this harsh, punishing rasp barely sounded human.

“So I am a coward, now, as well as a tyrant and a fool. No wonder you're so eager to be free of this arrangement.”

His heart beat out of rhythm; his breathing came too fast. His eyes were bright and beautiful and broken, and Stephanie realised she was afraid that he would cry. James had been a soldier, though, and for much longer than that a hunter of things that knew no mercy; he set his shoulders and pressed on.

“I am glad, at least, that this doctor empowers you to speak your mind after _twenty years_ of misery.”

She must have cut him deep, to make him lash out so.

“James, my love-”

It was much too late for that.

“No. I’ll not be called your jailer too. God knows you are the master of your fate, my girl- you must do what you think is best.”

He meant to leave, Stephanie realised. She could not say if he wanted to be gone from the room, or the house, or their life together.

“Please, you don’t have to-”

James stopped and turned so she could see his face.

“You must know I would never leave you.”

Of course not. She was ashamed of even considering it.

“I wish you every success, sweetheart, but I cannot watch this. You know where I will be if you need me.”

He shook the doctor’s hand as decorum required, but his eyes were as unforgiving as the silver bullets both men carried.

“If she comes to grief you will wish you had never left Budapest.”

In a moment, he was gone.

“I’m sorry. He does not mean to be so- we only rarely disagree. I don’t like it any more than he does.”

“It happens,” the doctor murmured sympathetically.

“More often still when one has been too long in isolation.”

He spoke as from experience, but Stephanie chose not to ask. Her husband _was_ a fool, she thought defiantly; it was precisely to end their isolation that they must risk a little for a very great reward. When Dr. Banner suggested that they begin at once, if she was sure she wanted to continue, she asked only what she could do to help.

Their preparation took several weeks- delightful weeks, in that Stephanie saw Bruce Banner come alive with enthusiasm, but harrowing  as well, in that her husband had found a way to cut himself almost entirely out of her life without abandoning her. Even in his anger James would never treat her cruelly, so he was waiting for her every night with his cuffs undone and sleeves rolled neatly back. He never tried to hide that he missed her terribly, not that she could have failed to notice when the desperation with which he longed for her lingered on his skin, flavoured his very blood. And yet he was distant, too quiet, almost disinterested. James had always cherished what paltry intimacy they could still afford, but now he did not rub her back or cup her cheek or squeeze her gently, but suffered her presence like a civil servant marking time. Afterwards, he nodded with a politesse so practised that it seemed almost deliberately unkind, and wished her a pleasant evening before he left her for the night. It made Stephanie want to scream; often, it made her cry. It did not make her want to give up on what Banner believed they were about to do.

The only thing that eased her fear that she would be cured in time to find she had no husband left to care was that her James found other ways to express the affection he could not seem to show in person while they were at odds. He left her unexpected little gifts; an exquisite peach, river rocks in curious shapes, wildflowers of all descriptions. He was thinking of her, she thought he meant to say; he still found beauty in the world, and he would always want to share it with her. He was so like a child, in some ways- scared and spiteful when they were fighting, but playful, gentle, and so generous in his deep and binding love.

She never asked Dr. Banner whether James spoke to him at all- he must, she thought, but if her husband were angrier with her than with the doctor he accused of leading her astray Stephanie was not sure that she would like to know it. On the day of their experiment, however, the fresh-cut white lilies in the room which had become the de-facto laboratory were a quiet confirmation: of course her husband had kept track of their progress. The trial itself was the greatest anticlimax: Dr. Banner administered a single injection, and told Stephanie to wait. James glanced in on his way out some time before dawn broke, found them watching the clock in silence, and left without remark. Perhaps an hour later, Stephanie realised she could no longer hear the doctor’s pulse.

“Doctor! I think, perhaps-“

Stephanie was afraid to say more than that, but Dr. Banner reported good results. Very, very, cautiously, he drew back the heavy drapes that protected Stephanie from the sun- just an inch at first. She winced, prepared for the worst, but opened her eyes in wonder when all she felt was a golden warmth she hardly remembered. She barely gave herself time enough to embrace the doctor far more enthusiastically than anyone would have considered proper, as if any part of Stephanie’s life could be proper any longer, before she was running as fast as she could go- which was not as fast as it had been, but that too was a pleasure.

By the time she reached the village square where James must be pretending not to care what was happening under his own roof, Stephanie’s lungs were burning and her face shone with perspiration. She felt so alive she was bursting with it- she laughed out loud when she made out the dark head she sought. He was listening attentively as a young stable-boy desribed the horses in his charge in excited detail. Normally, Stephanie loved the sight of her husband entertaining children- he always took them as seriously as any adult, and even the youngest felt the difference and loved him for it.  Today the stable-boy would have to wait his turn.

“James!”

He went completely rigid at the sound of her voice. She knew before he turned that he was afraid to believe it, so she did not make him wait. Her arms were around his shoulders before he caught her at the waist; the stable-boy’s mouth hung open as Stephanie Barnes kissed her husband without fear for the first time in almost twenty years. After a little while James seemed to realise they were in a town square instead of their own bedroom and flushed deliciously right to the roots of his hair. She laughed and stroked his cheek.

“Come home, my love.”

“Of course.”

He did not try to apologise for enforcing their long separation, but there were tears in his eyes as he offered her his arm.

“Stephanie, can this be real?”

 It was only temporary, she warned him as Dr. Banner had warned her. But it was real enough, and it could be repeated, perhaps prolonged.

James raised no objections when Stephanie slowed their progress by kissing him again, once, twice, as many times as she could. They were perhaps two-thirds of the way back to their little cottage when she bit down on his lip and gasped with pleasure at the tingle of one tantalising drop of blood.

“Stephanie,” he murmured; she could taste the sorrow on his skin, but she could not imagine why.

“Sweetheart, we can't stay here.”

Stephanie didn’t care where they stayed as long as he would be with her. She pressed her mouth to his collarbone, following an electric murmur she could not describe until she met- oh, _yes._

James pulled away again, insistent- urgent.

“Later, darling.”

“Now, James.”

He surprised her by reaching not to embrace her but to sweep her off her feet- he had not tried to do that in many years. Instead of walking carefully with her, like when he’d carried her over the threshold of their first home together, James took off like a man who knew to fear those who pursued him. By the time they reached the house Stephanie’s skin was alive with something close to pain, but it was nothing to the way she burned for her distracted husband.

“No,” he gasped as her teeth began to change. One fang nicked his throat; she moaned like a harlot and strained to catch the fat droplet that was already forming.

“Not like this. You must stay in control.”

Her husband couldn’t know what it was like- if she did not have him, right then, she would surely die. Suddenly Stephanie remembered how much stronger than him she ought to be; almost as soon as she had had the thought James was trapped, delightfully, between her and the kitchen wall. She found her favourite spot where his neck met his shoulder and bared her fangs.

“Stephanie, _no_.”

She caught his hand where it was raised to stop her; if he angered her further she would crush his fragile bones to dust. When she realised what she had just thought Stephanie fell back with a sob.

“James, James- I don’t know where my mind has gone.”

“It’s all right,” he murmured, walking backwards towards the room where Banner waited. He must have known she would follow whether he wanted her to or not, but he beckoned encouragingly anyway.

“This way, my love.”

By the time they were in the other room Stephanie thought she might collapse. James took a chair at the table where he had not sat in weeks and offered her his arm as she fell into the one beside him. She was so sick with longing for him that when she lunged she missed his wrist entirely and began to gag as her teeth ripped at his palm.  Her husband laughed- sympathetic, not at all unkind, warm like a summer evening- and held her steady as he adjusted his arm himself.

“Slowly, my Stephanie. There's no need to hurry.”

She met her mark the second time, but by then she was so tired that it seemed impossible to make much effort. She closed her eyes and let James support her as his blood ran over her lips and down her throat until he decided she had had enough. More than enough, perhaps, from his perspective- his hands were trembling by the time she closed his wounds.

“I love you,” he told her gently-he had not said those words in days and weeks. Stephanie whimpered, miserable.

“My poor dear girl. Rest, now, all right?”

She knew he had to leave her, but it still hurt to watch him go.

“I don’t understand,” Stephanie complained to the doctor some two hours later. It should not have been so violent- she had fed in the normal way not fourteen hours earlier. In almost two decades she had never tried to overpower her James by force before. Banner was pale and drawn in his regret. Suppressing the vampiric urges only served to sharpen them as they returned, he said. Possibly it was a question of dosage. If they tried again-  

“Thank you, Doctor- I think not.”

He nodded, expressed remorse and understanding, and left her on her own. Stephanie dozed again, fitful and unhappy; she felt she had disappointed both her husband and their new ally. The second time she woke her husband was sitting across the room from her with Arrian’s _Campaigns of Alexander_. Instead of speaking, Stephanie moved towards him but sat at his feet instead of taking the chair next to his. James raised an eyebrow, but of course the man who had put up with her whole mad experiment- and suffered most of its consequences- with barely more than angry resignation would not complain about where she chose to sit.

“How many times do you plan to save my life?”

He laughed. This time it sounded much more like her husband, though it was very tired, and quite sad.

“As many as it takes, I should think.”

She sighed, leaning back almost against his legs. They sat in silence until James spoke again.

“Banner asked if I wanted him to leave us.”

The week before, Stephanie would have been relieved James had not driven him away at gunpoint, but experience suggested that her husband would be more forgiving than he expected himself to be.

“What did you tell him?”

He had told the doctor that they had valued his research immensely even before he had come, and that they were- both- deeply grateful for his efforts. If Banner wished to be on his way of course he must go, but if he preferred to stay James and Stephanie would be grateful for his expert assistance as they closed in on some of the oldest vampires known to either science or tradition.

Her husband was too good for this world, Stephanie thought, and _much_ too good for her. She sighed.

“Am I the very worst of wives?”

James laughed again, resting his hand cautiously on the arm of his chair, close to her shoulder.

“You are not. The most absurd, perhaps. If it helps, you are my favourite wife of all, and the only one I've ever wanted for myself.”

Stephanie found it helped a good deal.

“I can be patient,” she promised. James smirked but did not contradict her.

“We’ll end this the way you know is right.”

She saw the arguments cross his face- he did not fault her for wanting to find a solution, much less freedom from the limitations that kept her so far from society; he was deeply sorry the doctor had not been more successful; he would never treat her as anything but his equal- but he must have seen that she knew most of that, and could infer the rest, because he chose to smile and tease instead of renewing solemn promises.

"And then we will go out into the centre of the town and kiss under the noon-day sun for everyone to see. I think we gave that poor boy a fright, this morning."

It would have to be enough, Stephanie decided. She smiled a little, resting her head, just for a moment, against her husband’s knee. His hand brushed her hair in a barely-there caress she felt with all her being.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> back to England, where still more things are both different and the same.

 “James!”

Stephanie’s husband caught the stake she threw him and impaled the demon in a single motion, darting out of the way as the creature screamed and clawed futilely at its chest. Once it had crumbled to harmless, horrible ash, James was free to give his reassurances: he was not hurt, she had got there in time, they had been right to suspect that these stragglers were the last of Zola’s coven.  

“You were right, Doctor- he has abandoned them. He can only go to Aleksander or Johannes.”

There was a savage pleasure in the captain’s voice- at last, at long, long, last, they were closing in on the creature who had almost destroyed them. It seemed appropriate in some obscure way that this vital step took place here- almost in the same city where it had all begun more than half their lives ago. Stephanie had been twenty-one almost to the day when Howard Stark had come running out of the woods, waving blunt rowan-wood weapons and muttering about devils and death.

Stephanie had been inclined to laugh or call a doctor, but James had looked beyond the mad gentleman and seen the glowing eyes and rabid mouth of his pursuer. A soldier through and through- and worse than that, a young man in love- he had snatched the weapon out of the exhausted hunter’s hands and followed Howard’s instructions to kill the beast himself, and so had become the first vampire-hunter Howard knew of who had ever killed one of the demons before he fully believed that they were more than mythological.

“James,” Stephanie asked, following the order of her thoughts rather than that of their conversation, “Would you not like to visit Morley while we’re here?”

The Romantics would have envied Stephanie her tragic hero, she thought- he was the very picture of melancholy as he imagined returning to the house they had once called home. At first she thought it had not occurred to him that they were so close by, but as he shook his head minutely she realized James had simply dismissed the whim as impossible. Of course he would never ask such a thing of her. Dr. Banner, seeing that they were not so much at odds as in deliberation, addressed his question to whoever chose to answer it.

“Is he an old acquaintance? I do not believe you have mentioned Morley before.”

Bruce Banner had become a vital asset to their small team almost as soon as they had learnt to work with him- the doctor was well-read, highly intelligent, and one of the most dedicated men Stephanie and James had ever known. It helped, too, that the man who still cherished the dream of curing vampirism as a condition had enough experience in living outside society’s expectations that the absurd picture of Stephanie and her devoted victim barely even phased him. 

They had only intended to collaborate in the short term: James and Stephanie had begun to fear that they would run out of leads as they drove Strucker’s minions out of their mountainside gathering, and Banner- eager to make amends after the debacle of the serum- had suggested that his research into the Austro-Hungarian covens might prove of use to them. What they had not anticipated was how quickly the ex-Doctor Banner and the former Captain Barnes would become friends as soon as the former ceased his experimentation upon the latter’s wife. Framed that way, even Stephanie had to admit, it made a kind of sense.

Their methods differed almost as much as their interests aligned, with the result that between the two of them and Stephanie they covered almost the whole breadth of their field in impressive depth. The doctor was far less adept at hunting the creatures than James and Stephanie, but he had a head for research like no one except perhaps Howard Stark. Weeks had turned into months, and season had run into season with no natural end to their joint work in sight. There had been no discussion: James had simply returned from a rare daylight excursion that had little to do with his work and announced that he had found them a larger house, which would better accommodate Dr. Banner and his increasingly permanent laboratory.

Their lives were dangerous enough, James had said in his offhand way, without wondering at every meal whether that would be the day he chanced upon the utensils that had last been used to mix cyanide with belladonna, or whatever it was Dr. Banner did when James and Stephanie could not be on hand to monitor their silverware. The doctor, who had known by then that James Barnes was as hostile to unnecessary gratitude as his wife was to perceived charity, had asked amiably whether James thought they might procure a cold-room for his cadavers. Stephanie, standing between them, had laughed with such abandon as to alarm the doctor and thoroughly exasperate her husband.

“You are as bad as each other,” he had complained; no one had disagreed.

James smiled slightly as he shook his head.

“Morley is the Starks' country estate.”

There was no need for him to say more than that. Bruce had heard the story from both sides. It began much the same way- Howard Stark had stumbled into their lives and torn right through the fabric of reality as they understood it. Knowing what he owed them- far more clearly than they had at the time- Howard had taken it upon himself to make sure James and Stephanie were looked after as they came to terms with their new knowledge.

“I imagine you would get along,” James observed absently.

“He is the only man I’ve ever known who is more widely read than you are.”

Stephanie laid her gloved hand on her husband's arm, drawing his attention back to her face before he convinced himself it would be a mistake to go.

“He will want to see you, James.”

He looked very fierce.

“You do not suggest that I go without you.”

That was, of course, exactly what she had meant to suggest.

“You could be sure of your welcome. James, he will be so glad. You may give him my regards, and let him choose how he takes them.”

Her husband looked as angry with her as he had with the creature that not long ago had been intent on tearing out his throat.

“He will take your regards kindly and in person or lose mine altogether. He knew it then; he will know it now.”

Stephanie looked at her husband askance.

“How on earth did you come to discuss such a thing?”

They had been as close as brothers by the end, sure enough, but Stephanie could not imagine when she might have made either James or Howard doubt her enough to-

“You mean that night.”

He did. Even Bruce knew the story well by now- James had gone staggering from the crypt to collapse at the already heartbroken Peggy Carter’s feet; she had seen him back to Morley, and he had been in the process of convincing Howard that Stephanie was somehow both in need of living blood and possessed of her own living soul when Stephanie had appeared at the window. He had been so sure that Howard meant to help them- but then Peggy had attacked, and Stephanie had come so very close to beheading her with her bare hands. And Howard had a wife and son, James always murmured with a tenderness that made Stephanie’s heart ache for the children she might never bear her so-deserving husband.

“That is the sum of it, you know- why I can never blame him completely. I told two people what happened. She saved my life but tried to kill you because she knew I never would; he closed his home to us, but put his knife back in my hand and let me take you to safety.”

His phrasing left Stephanie reeling- in twenty years of bitter resentment it had never once occurred to her that Howard could have prevented James from leaving with her. Would she have fought him? She had no way to know. Perhaps James would have had to turn on her as well, if she had tried to kill his brother in all but blood. Or she would have tried to take him from his new prison, and Peggy would have finished what she thought she had to do. James would have lost his mind, betrayed by his friends and forced to leave her to her fate;Stephanie, starving to death for want of him, would not have lasted the week.

She started slightly when her husband put his arms around her. It was safe enough- Bruce was perhaps four lengths away, and further it was so cold in Cambridgeshire that they had perhaps six layers of clothes between them- but it was still unusual, and something of a shock. As she wondered why he would indulge her so, Stephanie realized she was crying. James held her closer than he should have dared; she pressed her face into his coat and listened to his dear heart beat for both of them.

“I never saw- James, all this time I have simply thought of him as leaving us to die.”

Her husband had devoted far too many sleepless days to the question.

“He must have known it was the most likely outcome.”

That was another truth did their best not to acknowledge. They had come close too many times- as they had learnt how much was too much, what Stephanie could and could not do like either of the species she was trapped between, the first time they had taken on one of the creatures without Howard and Peggy there to see they did not come to harm. And yet-

“He knew you would find a way.”

James kissed her forehead before he stepped away. His voice was heavy with memory, and with affection.

“Or die in the attempt. In any case he knew it was our choice, and he stood by us in that at least.”

She had never seen it that way.

“You say your friend kept you away to protect his son.”

Both James and Stephanie nodded; the doctor smiled.

“The young duke-”

“Tony,” James offered automatically. “Anthony Edward.”

Bruce corrected himself obligingly.

“Anthony Edward will be full-grown by now, I believe.”

He would be twenty-five that year.

“Surely he and I between us will be able to fend you off if one of you loses your head and tries to bite him in your enthusiasm? So far I daresay you pose the greater threat, Captain, but in either case I suspect we will be up to the task.”

It made the point elegantly. Stephanie laughed, but her husband's smile was guarded. Two nights later they were on the spreading grounds of the estate that had once been their home. 

James caught her hand and held it longer than he should; there was wonder in his eyes along with apprehension. They had not tried to guess what Howard would have to say about their appearing now to be a little younger than his son- in all likelihood, James said, he would have guessed already, and there was little they could do to change it if he did not like it.

“We should take our leave of you here,” James said suddenly; Dr. Banner smiled with polite curiosity.

“Where am I going?”

“When you see the library, I expect we will have minutes before forget you ever had friends outside its walls.”

The doctor’s eyes glowed with the fire of a fanatic promised new material.

It was only when they drew level with the large bay windows at which Peggy Carter had almost killed her –where she would certainly have killed Peggy if James had not interfered- that Stephanie’s nerve began to fail. 

“Perhaps you should go on without me.”

“Never, Stephanie.”

James had a particular gift for turning daily conversation into a renewal of his wedding vows. Stephanie wished, as she wished several times a day, that she could take the chance and kiss her husband slowly and with everything she felt.

“You can be very stubborn, Captain Barnes.”

“You have known it since we were children, and yet you agreed to be my wife.”

She had never once had cause to regret it.

“Stephanie, I would never let him hurt you.”

“Of course I have not met your friend,” Bruce ventured, peering into the dimly lit room, “But my strong impression is that he does not wish you any harm.”

They looked away from each other, surprised by the doctor’s tone, to find him spellbound by a very modern painting on the far side of the drawing room. It showed two figures dressed in rich medieval robes- a young woman with thick blonde hair and a dark-haired youth who gazed into her eyes as if he would give up the world without a thought, or win it just for her, if she only asked it of him. They held a broad chalice between them- a wedding cup, perhaps.

“Are they Arthurian?”

Stephanie had always found the love her husband and his friend shared for the old chivalric tales equal parts absurd and endearing. James nodded- his voice was rougher than it had been.

“Tristan and Isolde, I think. That will be the tonic he should not have drunk with her.”

Stephanie shuddered. She knew that story- Peggy had been as enthused as Howard with Wagner’s version of it.

“Forbidden love leads its victims to their doom?”

“Or perhaps requited love transcends first reason and then death.”

Before Stephanie could reply, she felt the odd humming beneath her skin that meant they were in danger.

“James, you must-”

He did not. Instead, he threw her to the ground and caught their attacker’s wrist in an iron grip. Stephanie felt the air leave her lungs when she realized why he had intervened with such urgency- the young man all but snarling in her husband’s grasp had come at them with a rowan rod in hand. How he had known she could not say; that he knew his duty was quite clear.

The relentless energy with which James’ opponent fought left him little room for mercy. Stephanie’s baser senses flared to life when the stranger surprised her husband with a concealed knife. It had not been so very long since she had fed, but it was still his blood- _his_ blood, spilled not in love but by a fool who could not tell friend from foe.

“Enough,” she snapped; James having long disarmed the other of his stake it took her very little time to get between them and nullify the threat.

“Stop,” another voice cried. Out of the corner of her eye Stephanie caught the steely glimmer of Howard’s quick-loading pistol.

“I really must insist that you release my friend at once.”

James stepped forward with his own demands.

“I say your friend must cease trying to destroy my wife, Anthony Stark.”  

“Captain Barnes,” the newcomer breathed as recognition dawned. He turned to the man in Stephanie’s grasp with both sympathy and real anger in his voice.

“Barton, what are you thinking? You know these are my father’s bosom friends. Of course they mean no harm.”

“These creatures are not capable of friendship, Stark.”

Stephanie shook the man in her grasp harder than a human woman could have.

“He is no _creature_. How can you think that?”

He answered her, but addressed his words to Howard’s son.

“Your father’s bosom friends are your age. What does that tell you?”

“It _should_ tell you that there is more to this than you can understand without a single word of inquiry,” Dr. Banner told him severely. He glanced from the two on the ground to James and his best friend’s son with his own gun trained on Howard's son.

“Would one of you like to make the introductions or shall we remain in this delightful position until sunrise forces our hand?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Steph gets jealous, which is bad for everyone involved.

For all her confidence in Howard’s goodwill towards her husband, Stephanie had never imagined that Tony Stark could have inherited his father’s kindness for Captain Barnes in such full measure. Almost as soon as they were in the drawing room Stark enveloped his father’s friend in a joyful, almost grateful embrace.

“He always hoped you would forgive us. Captain, Mrs. Barnes- he wanted so much to beg your pardon for himself.”

James bowed his head as Stephanie gasped, and for the first time Stark seemed to realize that they had expected to find his father still alive.

“You did not hear of it?”

They could not have heard of it, James answered evenly enough- they had not been back to England since first they had left it. The younger Stark- the only Stark remaining- laid an apologetic hand on the captain’s arm. James looked into the younger man’s eyes like a penitent searching for forgiveness.

“For God’s sake say they did not try to turn him.”

Stephanie longed to put her arms around her husband, and still more to shake him and insist until he believed her that even if they had it could not possibly be his fault. Tony Stark shook his head- they had found his father with his neck broken, and Carter too- for of course Peggy had stayed to fight when Howard had urged her to run and save herself.

“And your mother?”

Their host smiled.

“Was safe with me, in her own family home. Where she remains, no doubt cursing my name and weeping in the empty halls because her ingrate of a son has forsaken her to take up his accursed, much-missed father’s mad pursuit.”

James stumbled slightly in his relief; Stephanie took the smallest step closer as though she expected to have to steady him.

“Thank God for that, at least.”

“And thank you, I think.”

Both Stephanie and her husband looked up questioningly; the young Stark smiled in earnest.

“My father never forgot what you said to him that night.”

On what he took to be his friend’s advice, Howard had moved his household to the relative anonymity- and thus safety- of his wife’s estates, and raised his son a good enough distance from his work that the creatures who had come from him never laid eyes on young Anthony until, years later, he declared himself by name before avenging his father with stake and silver bullets.

“Good man,” James murmured; Stephanie smiled, and would have expressed her own mixed sorrow and relief if she had not suddenly become aware of a new presence in the room. She looked round just as the woman spoke.

“And so Sir Tristan and his lady have turned up after all. My congratulations, Mr. Stark.”

Tony introduced Natalia Romanova with a mockingly servile bow. The lady was an expert in their field, he announced with some significance; she had unparalleled experience not only with vampires in general but with Lukin’s coven in particular. James, recognizing a valuable ally, offered Natalia his hand as though she were a gentleman. Barton started forward, nervous, when Captain Barnes presented his wife.

“Tasha, you should-”

Their new acquaintance ignored Barton completely; from the way James was smirking Stephanie knew she was not the only one who counted it in Natalia’s favour. She grasped Stephanie’s arm in real friendship, but the fevered curiosity in her manner put Stephanie in mind of Dr. Banner during the earliest stage of their ill-fated experiment.

“You may ask your question,” she said mildly. Natalia had the decency to blush, but did not hesitate to make the most of Stephanie’s invitation.

“Is it true that you are one of them, but not forsaken?”

Her husband flinched at hearing it stated without ceremony, but Stephanie could not think of any reason not to answer. She reached into her coat and held out the silver crucifix she still wore around her neck for Stark and his companions to see, then took a step back- to show she meant no harm- and very quickly displayed and withdrew her fangs. Barton cried out in surprise, taking a step forward which looked largely involuntary. Tony’s appreciative murmur blended with the doctor’s as the two scholars’ heads bent together in excited conference. Natalia looked shaken, and yet more fascinated still. Her eyes slid towards Stephanie's husband.

“How did you manage it?”

James, standing level with Stephanie because he had stepped forward when Barton had, shrugged at their inquisitor with the innocence of early childhood.

“Faith and foolishness,” he offered.

“In almost equal measure, I think.”

Suddenly possessive, Stephanie took his gloved hand in hers and squeezed it, trying not to laugh at the way both Barton and Romanova tensed as though they thought she might bleed her husband dry using her fingertips.

“He would not leave no matter how I begged him.”

Natalia winced, but did not interrupt, so Stephanie told her what she most wanted to know.

“Somehow he turned a curse into a prayer, and as far as we can tell our Lord saw fit to answer. That is all there is to it.”

Barton snorted, wholly derisive.

“I suppose you glut your thirst on communion wine, then.”

James scowled, but it was Dr. Banner who answered, looking away from Stark long enough to defend his friends in a voice so dry and academic as to be impossible to doubt.

“She does not look for more than is freely given, and only from the one source. I have lived under their roof this last year and more, and the lady has never so much as glanced my way, even during an unnatural separation.”

Stephanie smiled with calculated sweetness.

“Do you see? You will be safe from me, Mr. Barton.”

Before she knew what to expect Stark’s friend had pressed forward so that he was standing much too close, flooding Stephanie’s senses with the steady hammer of his pulse, the slower throb of his heart, the gurgling rush of the blood under his skin.

“Wonders never cease- the vampire bride stays chaste for love of a mortal man. Are you not tempted, Mrs. Barnes, even a little?”

“I find _l_ am very tempted,” James growled, his gun already in his hand again.

“If you speak to her like that again I promise I will shoot you where you stand.”

“James,” Stephanie muttered, touched but also reproachful. Her husband chose not to relent.

“No,” he snapped, taking her arm and going so far as to pull her along a few steps in his agitation.

“You need not justify yourself to him. Nor to anyone, dearest girl.”

His eyes were ablaze with defiance; he seemed to want to hear that she believed him.

“I know,” Stephanie promised, longing to kiss his furrowed brow.

“I don’t think I care what anyone thinks but you, my James.”

His smile turned suddenly shy, and he took her hand as she had taken his before- in reassurance, in affection, and in still-frustrated longing.

“I think you are the most precious gift, but also that you must leave us now, or soon.”

It was very nearly dawn, he meant. Tony insisted with the authoritarian hospitality of the Starks that they would have their choice of rooms, so Stephanie assured him that she knew her way around and bade them all good night. She smiled warmly at her husband before she took her leave.

“No dueling today, Captain.”

Stephanie tried not to watch the smooth line of that luscious, so-beloved throat as her husband laughed.

“Without my second? I think not.”

Stephanie winked audaciously at Barton, smirking at the whole of their mostly gaping audience.

“You’re welcome,” she said blandly, then caught her husband’s eye again.

“Good night, my love.”

“And good morning, Mrs. Barnes.”

Barton’s voice was raised in protest before Stephanie so much as closed the bedroom door behind her, but when Tony and Natalia joined in before James fired back she thought she could trust the group to see that no one got shot in her absence. Her instincts proved sufficient: her husband was in good spirits when he came to her that evening, and as soon as it was safe for her to remain in his company he told her enthusiastically and at length about Tony’s vampire-hunting inventions, Howard’s research into the very bloodlines James and Stephanie had been pursuing for so long, and even Barton’s prowess with a bow. Stephanie tilted her head curiously.

“Have you two become friends so quickly?”

They had not, he muttered, but Natalia- Ms Romanov- liked the archer well enough, and James had nothing but respect for her. Stephanie nodded, smiled, and thought how good it was to see her boy galvanized instead of stoic and coldly determined.

“Will we work with these people, then, for some time?”

He looked at her with such hope in his eyes that Stephanie couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’m glad, my love. I think your Howard would be pleased.”

He nodded, quite serious, then smiled his boyish smile.

“We will make much faster progress. Some of the stories they can tell- I will not spoil them for you, darling, but at least a third of these I will not credit until I have seen the like with my own eyes.”

They did, in fact, see many of Stark’s tricks, and soon. It turned out that Tony and his friends had long been planning to leave on Lukin’s trail well before the Barnes contingent had turned up at Morley, and both James and Dr. Banner seemed very willing to prolong their working relationship with Tony Stark. Barton remained cold and hostile, though polite in a way that made Stephanie think that either Stark or Romanova had demanded a change in his behavior, or James and Dr. Banner had found a truly effective threat of which they did not intend to appraise her.

They made their way back east quickly and effectively, even if they drew more attention as a larger group. Dr. Banner was in his element with Stark, and Stephanie herself was quickly growing fond of her old friend’s indefatigable progeny. The one thing she would have changed, if she could, was her husband’s growing friendship with Natalia Romanova- or her own reaction to it, perhaps.

It was a simple thing, in itself. With Stephanie out of the way, Barton barely civil and Banner hard at work with Stark, James had found himself spending nearly all his daylight hours in the presence of a surprisingly like-minded Russian girl. They must have had more in common than Stephanie could see for herself, but her husband insisted that she wait to hear the story from Natalia herself rather than forcing her confidence through him. Natalia certainly seemed to appreciate the captain’s attentions; very soon, they were fast friends- often embroiled in conversations as unintelligible to the outsider as Banner's with Stark, training together and exchanging admiration and insults with equal dexterity. Stephanie told herself she was delighted that her husband had anyone at all in whom he might confide, and that it was wonderful how this side of Captain Barnes seemed to bring out the best in Clint Barton as well, so that the two had almost entirely stopped trading silent, stony looks and thinly veiled threats. She almost believed it, too, until the night she woke to find her husband was not waiting on her as he usually was, knowing she would seek him out, but deep in conversation with the woman who was most definitely not his wife.

As Stephanie watched from the winding staircase of the inn where they would spend the night, James took Natalia’s hand and pressed it gently between both of his. Certainly he had spoken casually with many young women since their long night had begun- Stephanie had long known that she paid other women far more mind on her husband’s account than James ever did himself. And yet- she was sure he had never, in all the time she had known him, given any person his attention so completely as to forget about her altogether. He smiled at Natalia, sad and knowing- the eyes she had loved all her life crinkled with affection for someone else. Stephanie wanted nothing more than to break the wretched woman’s neck.

“James,” she called sharply, using a voice she had never even heard from herself before. Her husband’s eyes snapped to hers.

“Come with me.”

“Captain,” Natasha began in the gravely warning voice of an unhappy Sybil, but Stephanie did not have to look back to know that her husband would follow her. She did not speak again until he did, when they were safely in the room she had left to find him.

"Is something the matter?"

“You are too familiar with her.”

James’ frown was one of pure, unfeigned confusion.

“With Natasha?”

The caution in his eyes made Stephanie’s skin itch as badly as the familiar shortform did. She spoke more playfully than in anger, but there was an edge to every word.

“Are you too familiar with many women, James?”

His breath caught when her hands closed over his hips. It had been years since she had made such an advance, and of course James knew better than to try. However long it takes, he had said- so many years ago, now. Perhaps he had grown tired of waiting. He would be perfectly safe with his _Natasha._

“Do you want her, is that it? Do you find her beautiful, Captain?”

Her husband stopped just short of throwing his hands up in frustration as he pulled away, scowling with the same righteous anger that left him flushed and impatient.

“She’s very beautiful. Can you really think that is all I want?”

That was a worthy sentiment, Stephanie thought; perhaps it should be rewarded. She kissed her husband, hard, and smiled when he gasped against her lips. This was nothing like being close to Clint Barton- Stephanie felt her teeth transform without any decision on her part as the longed-for blood beat warm, hot, scorching, so close that she could almost taste it.

 “You love _me_ ,” Stephanie reminded her James sternly.

“ _Only_ me.”

“ _I_ know that.”

James sounded aggravated; he could not see why she thought they should discuss it.

“I have told you so since before we were courting, Stephanie.”

Her husband was just like a boy, she thought fondly- James could hardly concentrate on what they were saying with her hands at his belt, her lips so close to his skin. He wanted everything she wanted and more than that, so much that Stephanie could taste it on his skin, and yet he was rigid with tension, his lovely eyes concerned and even frightened.

“Listen to me. Stephanie, this isn’t-“

There had been too much talk already.

“Hush, James.”

He fell silent, but Stephanie did not care for the way her husband’s hands clenched anxiously where he was holding onto her. He should not have to fear her, she thought crossly; he should know she would never do him harm.

“Be still, my nervous creature.”

James let her overpower him- Stephanie pressed her husband back against the wall as she took his mouth with the enthusiasm of a pilgrim breaking his long fast. She trailed the same drugged kisses from his ear to his jaw, quick and hot. When her teeth dragged against his fragile skin she went back and licked away the hurt along with the blood that kept them both alive.

“I love you,” Stephanie promised, and moaned from somewhere deep in her chest as her teeth met the beloved neck.

Usually her James moved with her, in his way- gave a very particular half-gasp that always made her shiver, or tightened his free hand in her hair or at her waist to savour what closeness they could still afford. Often he breathed her name as though he thought she needed the encouragement. This time he only breathed quietly as she-what had he said?- took what was hers. Good, Stephanie thought with something like triumph- let him remember that even in this half-made state she could still make him forget everything but the nearness of her.

The familiar thrumming of his blood fresh in her veins made her smile- his heart beat for both of them, it was James himself who had told her that. He was so good to her, poor boy- and so patient with her myriad insecurities. Stephanie opened her eyes to tell her husband again how much she adored him and recoiled at the sight of his already-glassy eyes. Suddenly, with terrible clarity, she understood what she had done, and why he had barely moved.

“James! I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I never meant-“

They knew, of course, about the vampiric trance: the wordless spell that brought unsuspecting mortals into the demons’ thrall. They had never had any reason to wonder whether Stephanie could have that effect on anyone. Certainly she had never imagined that she would ever want to command her only love.

“God forgive me. James, please-”

Her husband’s clammy fingers closed around her arm as soon as she allowed it. Stephanie sealed the gashes she had made in his poor throat, but of course there was no way to give back what she’d taken. He breathed her name, his voice already a fading echo. Each weary syllable rang with absolution.  

“No,” Stephanie protested, but he was already struggling just to stay conscious. Stephanie did not hesitate, but pressed her precious burden closer to her chest and vanished into mist.

She reappeared in the doctor’s room, where by chance alone the others had gathered to play cards. Stark gave a startled shout when Stephanie appeared out of the ether, but Dr. Banner left the card table in search of his medical supplies without delay.

“What in heaven-”

Tony got his answer as Stephanie laid her husband carefully on the bed. There was a terrible hush, and she knew they were wondering if the captain was already dead. Barton was the first to speak.

“What did you do?”

She had no idea how to put it into words.

“We- that is, I-”

Time was too short for such hapless fumbling. Stephanie turned to Bruce with tears of desperation in her eyes.

“Doctor, please. Say you can help him.”

Banner was already examining his patient; Stark slumped back in visible relief as it became clear that the captain’s pulse, though weak and unconvincing, was discernible to an alert ear. The doctor met Stephanie’s eyes with steady resolution. She knew before he spoke that she would not like what he had to say.

“There is time, but I'm afraid I must ask you to leave us.”

She would not, Stephanie snarled, but Banner was insistent.

“He must have blood.”

“Then you should give it to him.”

The hiss in her voice had Barton’s hand edging towards the bow under the table, but Banner was adamant.

“I’ll have to open a vein. How will you react to that?”

She would kill the fool who tried it, Stephanie realised as her hands clenched at the thought- and quite likely whoever presumed to offer what she could not give herself.

Stark, very bold, touched her elbow to claim her attention while he could.

“It must be soon.”

Stephanie caressed the captain’s bloodless cheek with trembling fingers, resolutely concealing any sign that she had noticed the others tense when she stretched her hand out to her husband. To her victim, who was insensible and could still die because of what she had made him do for her. 

“Take care of him,” Stephanie begged, and disappeared into the nowhereness from which she had appeared. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint has a change of heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I kind of got bored of this, partly because I can't quite get the register the way I want it and partly because hunger games fic is both quite absorbing and so miserable that I don't really have the headspace of other miserable things, but…I quite like it, you know? so here is a bit more of it even though I STILL can't get the register right. hmm. maybe one day I'll do 1940s vampire steph, then it will be like Dracula Untold and Bucky will be able to talk in his own voice. hmm.

Clint Barton had seen a good many vampires in his time, and still more of their victims- both alive and otherwise. By the time he had found the dusty crypt that had been Stephanie’s self-imposed prison since she had appeared in Banner’s quarters with blood on her lips and tears in her eyes, he was prepared to admit he had never known a creature quite like the captain’s wife. Certainly he had never seen a vampire leave its victim alive of its own volition, much less in a flood of frightened tears. He had never seen a vampire cry at all before; he had not known they could. Perhaps they could not, and it was just another way the unfortunate Mrs. Barnes was trapped between what was good in the world and what should never be.

“Barton,” she whispered as Clint raised his bow only to lower it again at the sight of her. It had been close to a week since Stephanie had seen them last, and she was too weak by half to be considered any kind of threat. Her hands trembled as she clasped them together as if in prayer.

“Please god say he is recovered.”

“He is alive,” Clint allowed, unexpectedly moved by the sight of her longing and regret.

“But sick with grief, and worried beyond consolation.”

She gave a choking cry that might have been some form of denial. Clint met her eyes and spoke as plainly as he could.

“Your husband believes you have come away to die.”

The Captain had been right, Clint realized; Stephanie made no effort to deny the charge, but turned her face away with a bitter smile.

“I would have thought you’d be the first to say I _have_ been dead these twenty years and more.”

Until he’d watched with his own eyes as she left her husband in his doctor’s care with soft entreaties fairly aching with remorse, Clint thought he might very well have said exactly that.

“Would you have turned him?”

Stephanie froze. Seeing his advantage, the hunter made his point more strongly still.

“If Banner had said there was no hope, and your choice had been to let him go or make him yours, would you have made him yours?”

She hardly had to think on it.

“I would break his neck myself before I let the devil take him.”

She closed her eyes as if in sudden, unspeakable pain.

“Is that what he believes?”

Clint found that he was smiling, not widely but far more warmly than he would have thought possible in the presence of such a creature.

“I’m almost certain he would kill the fool who suggested it, if only he had his second with him. Apparently he trusts her above all others on God’s earth.”

Her shoulders shook with the force of her unhappiness.

“That cannot still be true. Not after this.”

It was, however, and Clint knew the simplest way to prove it.

“Who do you imagine told me where to find you?”

Stark had not been at all convinced that the old crypt was passable in the first instance, but the captain had been adamant, and Clint had seen no reason not to at least make the attempt. If he had not there was little doubt that Barnes would have found some way to give them the slip and go after Stephanie himself, and then they would have lost the pair of them, quite possibly for good.

“He is deluded. How can I _ever_ go to him again?”

This was the question, Clint understood abruptly, that told the difference between the monster he had feared instinctively and the girl her husband seemed so determined to protect even as he recovered from wounds she had inflicted.

“I will not let you go too far,” he promised before he had quite thought through the offer.

“You need not be alone with him until you are surer of yourself.”

She understood at once what Clint was saying: her husband and the doctor would do their best to offer similar reassurances, but of course the Captain could not help but hope, and pray, and inevitably wait too long. If Stephanie behaved so that Clint saw no other way, he would put a stake through her heart and let Stark try to talk her husband out of the vengeance he was sure to take.

“Promise you will not let me hurt him.”

“I swear it,” Clint said solemnly, and managed not to flinch when the ghostlike creature in the crypt offered him a watery echo of a smile.

“Come,” he said softly, making some effort to speak lightly.

“I should like to rescue Natalia before your husband drives her to distraction. Even before I left he was pining and sighing like a princess in a tower.”

He had not known a vampire could laugh without malice, either.

Of course they had to travel by night, which between the overgrowth and Stephanie’s fragility meant that it took them two full days to reach Morley again. They found Captain Barnes in much better health _and_ spirits than he had been when Clint had left- his complexion was still waxier than his doctor would have liked, and his steps slower than they might have been, but he was on his feet as they approached. Both the captain and his doctor were concentrating on a mounted sea-chart while Stark read aloud from some ancient tome. All three looked up when Stephanie shrank back at the sight of her husband, giving a low moan that might have been his name if her teeth had not already begun to change.

“Stephanie!”

The sight of her took years from his weary face. Stark had already thrown the bay window wide, but the captain vaulted over the ledge so he could lift her from Clint’s mare himself.

“There you are, my blue-eyed girl.”

She fought to keep some distance between them, plainly terrified of what she might do if he let her take what they both knew she needed.

“I’m sorry! James, I-”

“I know,” the captain murmured, taking both of her hands and smiling quite sweetly when Stephanie allowed him to draw her to him.

“Poor dear girl. You know as well as I do that you must not stay away so long.”

She shook her head violently, desperate to save him.

“I cannot. James, I-”

“Dr. Banner is not ten yards away,” Clint broke in, unwilling to watch either one of the unfortunate couple suffer any further. Both the captain and his wife started like they had forgotten they were not alone.

“Barton,” Stephanie murmured.

“You will not forget your promise.”

It was all he could do to watch her eyes rather than her fangs, but Clint gave his word again. Her husband seemed to guess the nature of their pact, but nothing in his face or voice betrayed any emotion but quiet resignation.

“Here,” he murmured, guiding his wife closer with a hand at her back. When he released her to reach for his collar Stephanie reared back like a colt that had been badly spooked.

“No. James, it’s too dangerous.”

“It will be easier,” he argued; the young woman shook her head with steel-clad resolution.

“I won’t do it.”

Clint had not realized there was any other option, but Captain Barnes was already smiling slightly, shaking his head as he rearranged his shirt with theatrical care.

“As my lady demands.”

His voice was soft and teasing, as fond as any man Clint had ever heard addressing his spouse.

“You _have_ always been a stubborn wretch.”

“You’ve never yet objected,” Stephanie whispered, caught between coy flirtation and poorly hidden dread that he might yet come to his senses and do precisely that. Her husband winked, and Clint found himself abruptly reminded that the man had been almost a decade younger than Clint himself was now when Schmidt had almost made a widower of him.

“And I never shall, my darling girl.”

His voice grew serious, his gaze suddenly pleading.

“Please, Stephanie. Surely this has been penance enough.”

 Clint saw Stephanie’s eyes dart towards her husband’s throat. Instead of lunging, however, she rested her cheek against the captain’s shoulder and waited for him to nod- permission and absolution in a single movement- before she raised the hand he held out to her lips. Her husband gave a muffled cry as her teeth tore at his wrist, but he showed no distress as he pressed his wife closer, stroking her tangled hair with his free hand.

It was far too intimate a moment for anyone to witness at such close quarters; as Clint glanced away he found that Stark or Banner had drawn the curtains in the study to afford the captain and his wife their privacy. A sudden movement caught his attention: Clint caught the merest glimpse of Natasha at the upstairs window, her hand over her lips and tears running freely down her lovely face, before she too let the curtain fall.

“Stephanie,” the captain murmured, his voice less steady than it had been before. Clint dared to look his way again and found himself momentarily spellbound by expression of pure devotion with which James Barnes watched his wife close the wound she had inflicted and press a careful, grateful kiss to her husband’s wrist.

“You see,” he murmured, quite triumphant.

“No harm done, at all, and you are so much better now.”

“You should go,” she murmured, though from the way her hands lingered at his shoulders Clint thought she was willing to be convinced otherwise. That, indeed, was the captain’s plan: he shook his head slightly and reached for the warm, damp cloths none of them had seen Banner lay out.

“I may never leave your sight again.”

He approached far more boldly than his wife would have allowed if their long separation had not left her so vulnerable, and murmured sympathetic nonsense as he wiped blood, and tears, and a full week’s grime from her pale face.

“Beautiful girl,” he smiled as he set the cloth aside.

“I don’t think you can imagine how I’ve missed you.”

“I don’t understand you,” Stephanie protested softly.

“How can you mean that, after everything I’ve-”

He scowled, suddenly fierce.

“Because you’re mine, woman, and whether you ask it of me or not I will love you until my last breath, and quite likely beyond that.”

Clint had thought Stephanie might smile, but instead she pressed her face into her husband’s neck, hiding her eyes as her tears began to fall.

“I love you,” she whispered, and then his name, and then the same again. Her husband smiled, so gently, and kissed her greasy hair with a confidence he would not be able to afford by morning.

“Now,” he said quietly when she had calmed.

“Would you like to show Banner and our Tony that you are as well as you look? I think we’ve made poor Barton stand out here in the wind quite long enough.”

They raised their eyes to his in perfect coordination.

“I’m very glad you are both well,” Clint said sincerely, and thought it must be the first time the captain had ever looked at him in friendship. It was Stephanie, however, who spoke for the pair.

“Thanks to you, I think.”

It was more than he deserved after all the ill he had wished on them at first, but Clint smiled and offered her a half-bow of acknowledgment. Inside, they found both Stark and Banner close to giddy with relief, and Barnes smiled widely while his wife did her best to act as though she felt deserving of their unfeigned joy. Eventually he prevailed on her to rest, going so far as to take her by the arm and lead her gently towards the upstairs rooms as she murmured her thanks again. He could not risk staying with her, of course, but after all that had happened Clint could not be surprised that the couple would wring what closeness they could afford from this strange lapse in their routine.

“So,” Dr. Banner said quite warmly, catching the archer’s eye.

“Now you see.”

Both men smiled; it was true enough, after all. Clint might have answered, but at that moment he caught sight of Natasha, slowly descending the stairs with one of her most private possessions held carefully in both hands.

“Tasha, are you sure-”

He trailed off, because he could not be sure himself of what she imagined she was doing. Natasha set the daguerreotype on Stark’s desk in a brisk, decisive movement, but her eyes lingered on the handsome face so carefully etched into the glass.

“I must tell her,” she said quietly. She had not yet said aloud that she felt in any way responsible for what Stephanie had done, but Clint saw it now, and clearly, as Natasha’s gloved hand brushed some imagined fleck of dust from the treasured frame.  

“I think perhaps I should have told her months ago.”


End file.
